MIck,
I am drawing from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, approved unanimously by “Paul, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, together with the Fathers of the Council”, and promulgated on December 4, 1963, Ch. 5, ‘Liturgical Year’, #102-7, including an insight into traditional customs and local conditions to reflect the universal nature of the Church, and the complexity in administrating it ( 107).
The foundation of Catholicism is that Jesus Christ preached, healed, suffered, crucified and died for us and rose on the third day. Our faith is centered on Him.
- The Church is conscious that it must celebrate the saving work of the divine Bridegroom by devoutly recalling it on certain days throughout the course of the year. Every week, on the day which the Church has called the Lord’s Day, it keeps the memory of the Lord’s resurrection, which it also celebrates once a year, together with his blessed passion, in the most solemn festival of Easter.
Within the cycle of a year, moreover, the Church unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from his incarnation and birth until his ascension, the day of Pentecost, and the expectation of blessed hope and of the Lord’s return. (Our liturgical year ends on Christ the King, and then the new year begins with Advent.)
Recalling thus the mysteries of redemption, the Church opens to the faithful the riches of the Lord’s powers and merits, so that there are in some way made present in every age in order that the faithful may lay hold on them and be filled with saving grace.
- In celebrating this annual cycle of Christ’s mysteries, the Church honors with a special love Mary, the Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son. In her the Church holds up and admires the most excellent effect of the redemption and joyfully contemplates, as in a flawless image, that which the Church itself desires and hopes wholly to be.
- The Church has also included in the annual cycle days devoted to the memory of the martyrs and other saints. Raised up to perfection by the manifold grace of God and already in possession of eternal salvation, they sing God’s perfect praise in heaven and offer prayers for us. By celebrating their passage from earth to heaven the Churh proclaims the paschal mystery achieved in the saints, who have suffered and been glorified with Christ; it proposes them to the faithful as examples drawing all to the Father through Christ and pleads through their merits for God’s favors.
- Finally, in the various seasons of the year and according to its traditional discipline, the Church completes the formation of the faithful by means of devout practices for soul and body, by instruction, prayer, and works of penance and of mercy.
Accordingly the sacred Council has seen fit to decree what follows.
- By a tradition handed down by the apostles and having its origin from the very day of Christ’s resurrection, the Church celebrates the paschal mystery every eighth day, which, with good reason, bears the name of the Lord’s Day or Sunday. For on this day, Christ’s faithful must gather together so that, by hearing the word of God and taking part in the Eucharist, they may call to mind the passion, the resurrection, and the glorification of the Lord Jesus and may thank God, who “has begotten them again unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pt. 1:3). Hence the Lord’s Day is the first holy day of all and should be proposed to the devotion of the faithful and taught to them in such a way that it may become in fact a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations, unless they be truly of greatest importance, shall not have precedence over the Sunday, the foundation and core of the whole liturgical year.
(107. The liturgical year is to be so revised that the traditional customs and usages of the sacred seasons are preserved or restored to suit the conditions of modern times; their specific character is to be retained, so that they duly nourish the devotion of the faithful who celebrate the mysteries of Christian redemption and above all, the paschal mystery. If certain adaptions are considered necessary on account of local conditions, they are to be made in accordance with the provisions of art. 39 and 40.)
We have the great Tradition and the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the wholeness of Scripture to verify as well we are universal in character, and we also have the small ‘t’ traditions that change and adopt with the times and various cultures.
